A Little Fall of Rain
by Eilonwy Grace
Summary: Hazelle's return to District 12 stirs up uncomfortable emotions in Katniss.


I can feel the stirrings of the child within me. It will not be long now. I place a hand on my bulging stomach, wishing that Peeta were here with me now, and not in a far away district with my mother.

Although, I calculate for the hundredth time, by this time they should be well on their way back to District 12. My mother of course came to help when the girl was born, and I knew it was important to her to be here for the second child, too. Last year, however, she fell very ill, and her recuperation has been slow. She would have been unable to make the journey alone.

"We can send Haymitch," I had grumbled, sitting on a chair in front of the fire, trying to stave off the cooling air of coming winter.

"Haymitch, Katniss?" Peeta raised his eyebrows. "You do want your mom to get here in one piece, right?"

"I just wish you didn't have to go."

I turned away from him, staring into the fire, frustrated with myself and the terror I felt rising up within me at the thought of his absence. Terror not just for myself, that perhaps could have been manageable; I had, after all, managed to see to my own survival for all these years. It was taking care of other people that had always been the problem for me. How many names could I recite, of those who had trusted me for protection, whom I had been unable to save?

Rue. Prim. The unspoken names caught in my throat as I felt the child within me shift. Would I soon have to add his or her name to the list of my failures? The name of his or her sister, who slept so sweetly and trustfully in the next room?

"Katniss." Peeta stood behind me, so close that I could feel his warmth seeping into my coldness. "You will be okay. I promise. I'll only be gone a few days."

"A few days."

He wrapped his arms around me, one hand resting on my swollen belly, his lips on the back of my neck. Peeta. After all this time, he was still here. Not dead, not hijacked. Here. With me. He had managed to survive the worst that the Capitol could have thrown at him; he was living proof that life could triumph in even the darkest places. My boy with the bread, the dandelion in spring.

"Okay," I muttered softly. "Just come home soon, okay?"

I prop myself up in bed to glance out the window. The first, fat snowflakes of winter are falling. From inside, wrapped in a warm blanket, they look idyllic, peaceful. But I cannot help but feel a sense of menace emanating from them. I hope that the snow will be light, and that Peeta and my mother will be safely inside by the time that the storm starts in earnest.

I pull myself out of bed and pad into the other room to check on the girl. She is sitting on her knees, staring out the window with wide eyes. She does not turn when I enter; she is so absorbed in the falling snow that I doubt she can hear anything else.

After the girl was born, my mother washed her and placed her in my arms. She nestled into my breast and I felt, for the first time, a wave of _rightness _so strong that it was almost frightening in itself. When I looked up at Peeta, there were tears in my eyes.

"What shall we name her?" he asked, pulling up a stool and sitting beside us, reverently running a gentle finger down her silky arm.

"I don't know," I said. "I haven't given it much thought."

He smiled as she grabbed his finger with a tiny yet surprisingly tight grip. "What about Mary?"

"Mary? What sort of name is that?"

"She was a character in a story I once read."

"A story that you read?" Although story-telling had been a common way of passing the cold winter nights in District 12, there had been few books, and most of those were Capitol-created texts on history and coal production. Even the stories that we told one another tended more toward local history and less toward the imaginative side of things.

"Yeah. It must have been Madge's tenth or eleven birthday. Her parents invited most of us town kids to her house for a party, and we were playing hide-and-seek. I hid myself in the attic, but must have hid too well because no one seemed to be coming for me. It was then that I stumbled across the small cache of books."

"Really? Mayor Undersee had those?"

Peeta shrugged. "I don't know if they were his, or if they had belonged to a previous mayor. They were covered in thick dust, and some of the pages nearly disintegrated under my fingers."

"They're gone now," I said, a dark cloud seeming to pass through the room. I held the baby more tightly to me, fearful that I could hear the sound of attacking ships in the distance.

He pushed the damp hair away from my forehead. "Yes."

"What sort of books were they?" I forced myself to ask.

"Oh, there were two or three books that looked like some sort of television script, only in language so old I could barely understand a tenth of it. Written by a William somebody. And some poetry, and the book with the story of Mary in it. That one was the easiest to read."

"So, what happened in the story?"

"I didn't have time to read it all, but it started with a girl getting a visitor telling her that she was going to have a baby. At first she didn't believe him, because turns out she was still a virgin. After a while, though, she started to believe."

"Sounds pretty strange."

"Yeah, I thought so, too. I was about ready to put the book away before someone could find me. But then she starts singing."

"Singing."

He smiled distantly, brushing his thumb against my cheek. "Of course I thought immediately of you. Her song… I remember shaking, being so startled by the things she was saying. Stuff about bringing down the mighty from their thrones, and filling the hungry with good things. I remember thinking… this is a dangerous book. No wonder Mayor Undersee or whoever it was had taken such pains to hide it."

I looked down at the baby now sleeping in my arms. "And that's what you want to name her?"

"I think her song was a kind of prophecy, you know? In any case, it was a song of hope."

Hope. The word was painful in my breast. After all that time – I still couldn't bring myself to quite believe it. I looked up into Peeta's eyes, clear blue and shining with tears of his own. The story he had described was pretty strange, although in a way I suppose it was just as strange that we two should be together here, surrounded by the quiet sounds of nature, our child sleeping in my arms.

"Okay," I said at last. "Mary Hope it is."

"Mary," I call, coming up behind her and putting a hand on her shoulder. She turns to me, her blue eyes still wide and her cheeks flushed with pleasure. "The snow, mama."

"Yes," I say. "Come eat breakfast, and maybe after we can go out in it for a bit."

"Weally?" she asks, returning her gaze outside the window, a happy sigh escaping her lips. "So pwetty."

I grin. "You wouldn't think so if you were stuck outside in it, would you? Nature can be beautiful, but fierce too, if you get on the wrong side of it."

She doesn't answer; she is still so absorbed in the falling snow outside. I grin again as I pull some clothes out of her closet for her to wear. She is still too young to take hunting with me, but I intend on taking her out as soon as she gets old enough. A part of me thinks it a shame, knowing it might spoil her wide-eyed innocence, but I know that it is important to fit her with tools for survival. It is the least I can do – if I can not always protect her, at least I can give her the tools to protect herself.

Peeta and I disagree about this. He says there is time enough to teach her all that she needs to know, without rushing it. As for Mary, she seems to enjoy baking and painting with her father more than my lectures about traps and tracks.

Perhaps she will be an artist. Perhaps that is the sort of thing that is possible now.

At last she manages to tear herself away from the window and gets dressed. Then we start downstairs, the girl still silently absorbed in memories of snow.

"I guess I should go check on Haymitch today," I say later, as I set her plate in front of her. "We haven't seen him since your father left."

"Haymitch asleep?" asks Mary thoughtfully. Although Haymitch still makes the odd effort to sober up from time to time, drinking remains his main occupation. Whenever he is sober, however, he is a surprisingly caring 'uncle' for the girl, and she adores him.

"Something like that," I say, wondering if I can stomach a trip to his house. With this pregnancy, I have been reacting very badly to smells. Even a normal smell can be enough to make me nauseous for days. The rank stench of Haymitch's squalid disarray? It might kill me.

I wonder if we can find someone willing to clean house for him again. I know that Hazelle has recently returned home to District 12 after many years living with her children elsewhere. I don't know why she returned, and I haven't asked her. To tell the truth, I have hardly spoken to her at all, which makes me a little sad, as I have always liked and respected her. But I find it difficult to look at her without thinking of Gale. Difficult to think of Gale without remembering Prim. Difficult to remember Prim without the poisonous thorns of anger even now closing around my heart, suffocating it, blocking it from all sunlight and good hope.

I scowl and quickly ladle some more porridge from the iron pot bubbling over the fireplace, burning my hand in the process. I cry out in surprise and pain as I examine the red mark on my skin.

"All wight, mama?" asks Mary, looking at me in alarm.

"Nothing that a little snow won't fix," I say, trying my best to make my voice light and airy. "Would you be a good girl and run get me some?"

"Oh, yes," she breathes, hopping out of her chair and rushing for the door as fast as her chubby little legs will take her.

After seeing to my hand, I bundle myself and Mary up and we spend the morning outside. Mary is even more delighted to be in the midst of the snow, and she never tires of sticking out her tongue to catch snowflakes, building tiny snowmen, and throwing handfuls of snow at me. By the time that we go back inside for lunch, our faces pink and our clothes wet, the snow is still falling, heavier and heavier.

I give Mary a bath, trying to be cheerful, telling her a story that my father once told me about the time he was caught in a blizzard as a young boy. Mary is fascinated by the story, and demands that I tell it to her again as I put her down for her nap. I do so, but inwardly berate myself for choosing this particular story to tell. Blizzards are no trivial matter. My father was lucky to survive the way he did. Others have not been so lucky; I can remember the story of a man who froze to death only meters away from his own home.

After Mary is asleep, I stare out the window at the thickening snow. Surely Peeta and my mother are not out there in that. Surely they are safe and sound in the train, and by the time that they arrive at the station, the storm will be over. They will trudge through the pristine whiteness, a little bit wet and a little bit tired, but safe and unfrozen, and we'll have a cheerful dinner together, my mother telling us all of her news. And then the baby will be born, safely, and the snow will melt, and life will continue…

I feel an intense pain in my abdomen. I clutch my side in agony, knowing that it is much too early for the child to come. My mother is not yet here. Peeta is not yet here. I am alone. It can't be time.

When my water breaks, I know that it is. I glance around me in desperation, wondering what to do. I gave birth once before; can I deliver this child on my own? I manage to climb down the stairs to the kitchen. The snow is still falling in thick layers outside. If I call out, I doubt that anyone can hear me, especially since Haymitch is our nearest neighbor and he is probably lying on his floor, passed out.

It is to my utter amazement, then, when the door opens and in walks none other than Haymitch himself, wrapped in a ratty looking scarf but otherwise looking remarkably self-possessed. His face creases in alarm as he sees me.

"Katniss? Are you all right?"

"The baby," I manage. "It's coming."

"Right." He glances around the room, as if hoping that one of the inanimate objects will jump up and tell him what do to. "Uh… what did you do the last time?"

"I had my mother," I say through labored breaths.

"Right." He grabs his scarf and heads for the door. "Uh… just stay there, okay?"

"Riveted to the spot," I say through gritted teeth, unbelieving that even Haymitch would just up and disappear on me in this, my greatest moment of need. And yet he has, and I am more alone now than when I thought he was lying on his kitchen table in a drunken stupor.

Water. I know last time, my mother made sure she had boiling water. There is some left over from lunch, and I manage to set it over the grate in the fireplace before the next wave of contractions overtakes me.

It seems to be hours before the door opens again and in rushes Haymitch, followed closely by a woman who it takes me a few moments to recognize as Hazelle.

"Your mother's not here?" she asks, as she helps me sit up a little.

"No," I wince. "She and Peeta are – " The pain breaks into my attempts at speech, and I find myself ending the sentence with a wail.

"You're fine," she says soothingly, rubbing my back encouragingly. "You're doing great. You're going to have this baby in no time. Haymitch, would you help me here?"

He approaches, looking a little white. I know it's not a pretty sight. I wouldn't choose to be here myself, if I had the choice.

"I thought – I thought you were drunk," I manage at last.

"I wish I was," he says. "Peeta stopped by on his way out and demanded that I keep an eye on you. Demanded! He's been spending too much time with you, sweetheart. Losing all of his good nature."

"I guess – I – have that – effect on people."

Haymitch laughed weakly and then immediately looked sick as Hazelle started giving him more instructions.

The labor was shorter than it had been with the girl, for which I was grateful. Hazelle was a competent midwife, and at last it was over, the baby's cries echoing into a world that had otherwise fallen silent. Even the storm outside had ceased to howl; the snow lay quietly on the ground in thick and soundless layers.

"So what are we calling this one?" asks Peeta the next day. He and my mother, looking haggard, had returned late that night. My mother had been distraught to learn that she had missed the birth, but happy to see that both the baby, a boy, and I were doing well. She was also glad to see Hazelle, who had stayed on to look after Mary while I recuperated.

"Maybe after your father?" I ask, looking at the tiny baby sleeping in my arms in wonder. Did it never grow old or diminish, the wonder of having created another life, of holding its warmth in your arms? Each new delicate finger, each new tiny toe – a little heart beating as miniature lungs filled for the first time with the clean, fresh air of life. I was suddenly filled with a great and overwhelming sadness for Finnick, who had never been able to experience the wonder of holding his own child.

"Okay. But we'll call him after yours, too," says Peeta, cupping his hand over the top of the baby's tiny head. "Colm Linden. I like the sound of that."

"Me, too," I say, relief flooding through my body as he leans over to kiss the top of my head.

"Get some sleep," he whispers. "We'll be here if you need anything."

"Okay," I say, suddenly exhausted. I watch as he takes the baby from my arms, a little awkwardly, as if not quite sure exactly how to hold it or how not to break it. I smile as I watch the picture they make, my husband and my son, and for a moment nothing in the world can intrude into the sweetness of the scene, or steal from me the peace and certainty that lull me gently into sleep.


End file.
